


for beautiful you are

by edenbound



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Happy Ending, Mutual Pining, Other, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), non-binary Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 05:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19846213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenbound/pseuds/edenbound
Summary: Crowley has a cottage, it turns out. There's just one little snag.





	for beautiful you are

**Author's Note:**

> Crowley is non-binary/genderfluid in this fic. (Those two things may not be the same for everyone, but they are for me. You can read him as both or either, as far as I'm concerned.) This fic does not involve any angst about that fact as such: at worst, Crowley feels discomfort because he believes Aziraphale is uncomfortable. (He isn't.)
> 
> Genderfluid and non-binary people deserve to be happy, and to have fiction in which we are happy. This is one more of those.
> 
> Title is from e.e. cummings "[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]", which I have never liked before and yet right now says "Crowley/Aziraphale" to me VERY VERY LOUDLY.

"A cottage," Aziraphale had said, staring blankly.

"Yes," Crowley had said, looking away quite firmly, "it's just that. Well. They know me as..." A helpless gesture. "I wear a _skirt._ "

"Crowley," he'd said, very gently, "why do you imagine that would be a problem for me?"

\---

It isn't a problem. It's just... it's just that Crowley is _different_ like this. It's not as though Aziraphale has never seen Crowley in feminine attire before. He'd thought at one point it was some kind of demonic perversity -- something useful, perhaps, for putting the right person off-balance, for whispering temptation in the right (or wrong) ear. He came over time to realise that it was nothing of the sort. Crowley's just like that, and Aziraphale has never _minded_.

It's just that, faced with the fall of Crowley's coppery auburn hair like this -- grown out via the use of a frivolous miracle or two -- faced with his bare and lightly freckled shoulders, with his lacquered fingernails, Aziraphale desperately wants to break all the rules and finally touch him. It's not just the skirt, because Crowley wears tight jeans as well on some days. It's something in the way Crowley carries himself here, now, and it transmutes into an unbearable weight in Aziraphale's chest, this need to reach out, to make a connection -- a weight he's felt for years, but found some balance with, when Crowley was in more familiar shapes, shapes that he's had time to get _used_ to. It prickles across his skin whenever they're within touching distance, a fizzing tension that should be more unpleasant but isn't. It's just... Crowley. This desire isn't really new.

The cottage is nice. It has two bedrooms, and Aziraphale uses his -- not to sleep, but to think, to read, to remind himself of things that cannot (should not? but it all seems so damnably possible now) be.

\---

"You said it wasn't a problem," Crowley says. His eyes are hidden behind his sunglasses, but his mouth is a tight flat line.

"It isn't, as such," Aziraphale says, helplessly. How do Crowley's _earlobes_ manage to look tempting? He wants to capture one between his lips, mouth in the hollow behind his ear, press teeth into the skin of his long, lovely throat --

"Clearly it is." 

"It's just that I love you," Aziraphale says, after a moment of silence. He scrambles to fill up that silence, his heart suddenly hammering in his chest and words spilling out. "It isn't a _problem_. And it doesn't change anything. It couldn't possibly; I've been in love with you for years. It's just that I'm not used to this, to you being like this, and it's making me -- well, to be quite honest with you, I've been thinking the most inappropriate things." Crowley is looking at him now, a hint of yellow eyes visible over the top of the sunglasses, and Aziraphale plunges on to try and stem whatever words are about to come out of his mouth. "It's really terribly _tempting_ , I'm afraid, and you know I'm really quite bad with that kind of thing. I can never resist the last slice of cake for long. Not that I want to eat you, but you know what I mean."

"Angel," Crowley says, very firmly, "shut up."

Aziraphale closes his mouth. Crowley is moving closer, and Aziraphale can't resist it, can't resist just this one little -- he reaches up, and his hand is shaking as he slides Crowley's glasses off. It's alright just to look at him, isn't it?

"Yes," Crowley says, as if in answer, though Aziraphale is fairly sure he didn't say it out loud. "You know you don't have to resist, don't you?"

His mouth is sweet and hot against Aziraphale's, and he tastes -- _of course_ \-- of apples.

\---

Crowley is sprawled face down on the bed, face half-buried in the pillow. His skin is deliciously warm, and Aziraphale can't help touching him. He rests his palm flat on the small of Crowley's back, just to touch him. Because he can. He _can_. And he can lean in to kiss Crowley's lazy smile, brush back a curl of red hair.

"You're going to have to tell me some of those inappropriate things you were thinking, angel," Crowley says, lazy, languorous, and Aziraphale shivers just at the sound of it. No wonder Eve ate the apple, he thinks. He would too.

But: "Do you think She meant us to be here, like this?"

There's no doubt of what he means. Crowley turns onto his side, looking up at Aziraphale. "I don't know. We can't know. _Ineffable_ , right?"

But Aziraphale thinks, watching Crowley, that he does know. The joy inside him is the answer, the only right answer. He takes Crowley's hand and kisses the palm. There are so many things he could say. Instead: "I do enjoy your bare shoulders."

"Mmmm. Wait till you see the dress I've got for next time we go out to dinner."

"You _could_ put it on for me now," Aziraphale points out. Crowley just smiles.


End file.
